


embrace my soul

by greenbergsays



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Light Angst, M/M, Major Character Injury, Modern Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 03:43:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14741390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/greenbergsays/pseuds/greenbergsays
Summary: All his life, Steve Rogers had only ever wanted to belong--to something, to someone, to both. And all his life, that belonging had been held just outside his reach.--Also known as: the Cap!Steve/modern!Bucky soulmate au that someone actually did ask for.





	embrace my soul

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mara_jade](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mara_jade/gifts).



> Commissioned by **brbtherescookies / mara_jade** , who simply requested shrunkyclunks soulmate au and lonely!steve.

Chaos. War was always chaos and Steve--Steve had been through enough war that he was good at blocking out the parts that didn’t readily concern him. If he’d been a little worse at it, maybe he would’ve noticed the warning signs before it was too late. 

The deafening sounds of Hulk knocking into a building overhead. People running, screaming around him, as he fought off another enemy combatant. The creak and groan of architecture losing its structural integrity. 

He didn’t notice the shadow falling over his head--the building collapsing--until a large chunk of brick wall flattened the man he was fighting. Steve blinked his surprise. He looked up just as the voices of his teammates came over the comm link in his ear.

“Cap, get out of there!” 

“Steve, you _idiot_ \--”

Another voice called, much closer and not through the comms: “Hey, watch out!”

The warning came mere seconds before something large and heavy bowled him over. He tumbled to the ground. The world plunged into darkness around him.

*

“There’s one thing,” said Agent Romanoff, “that I’m curious about. The history books never really touched on it.”

It was the first time they’d fought together as the Avengers, during the battle of New York, and it’d taken Steve an embarrassingly long moment to realize that she was talking to him; stupid, of course, since no one else on their team was in a history book. He knocked aside a Chitauri warrior and tossed his shield at another that was running full speed toward Agent Barton. 

“What’s that?” He asked, unable to keep the exasperation out of his voice. He caught his shield and immediately flung it again, this time in the opposite direction.

Eventually, he would learn that Natasha Romanoff was always calculated in her timing. She never did anything spontaneously. In that moment, though, he just found her line of questioning ill-timed.

“Your soulmate,” Natasha replied, barely out of breath.

Steve’s movements faltered from his surprise and he just barely dodged a shot fired from a Chitauri weapon. Across the battlefield that was a sunny Manhattan street, Steve watched as she choked a Chitauri with her thighs while reloading her guns.

Across the comms, Barton and Stark piped up at the same time.

“Really, Tash? Now?”

“Oh, _gossip_. I knew you were my favorite, Ms. Rushman.”

Gritting his teeth, Steve turned away from his teammate and flung _himself_ at a group of Chitauri this time, pretending that he hadn’t heard a thing.

*

It was a long time before the building finally settled. For a small eternity, Steve just laid there and listened to it fall. 

After he’d fallen to the ground, he and whoever or whatever had knocked into him rolled several feet together before finally apart. Steve continued to roll until he ran painfully into a pile of debris, wedging himself under concrete and what felt like a sharp metal beam digging into his side. He was relatively safe under his little pile. At the very least, he wasn’t being crushed by the building, but every new sound on top of him hurt his chest like a physical blow.

When the dust finally settled, the silence that followed the building’s collapse was nearly as deafening as the cacophony of the fall itself. Steve’s heart played a fast, painful rhythm against his ribs and his side throbbed in time with that beat. The only thing he could hear was that rhythm and his own breathing.

Something pressed painfully on his shoulder. When he tried to move his head, he felt a bit of concrete against his temple. He couldn’t see how far his prison of rubble extended. The darkness around him was impenetrable, even to his serumed eyes.

“I’m alright,” he said dazedly. “Guys, I’m fine, there seems to be -- can you hear me? Tony? Sam?”

There was no answer. 

He reached to touch the shell of his ear and only then did he realize that he couldn’t feel his comm unit anymore. It must’ve fallen out during his tumble and now, more than likely, it was crushed under the surrounding rubble.

“Shit,” he breathed out, letting his head thunk down onto the ground below him.

“Well,” said a male voice somewhere in front of him, “this is less than ideal.”

*

As a kid, young and just learning about what something like “soulmate” meant, you looked for it everywhere. By the time the concept finally started to sink in, there were years of fairy tales and bedtime stories, books, radio shows, movies--all of it to show you the ropes.

_Touch_ , you realized. Touch was how you found them. That person--or persons-- that would be your perfect match.

Steve remembered being ten years old and at recess.

All across the schoolyard, there were huddles of children--a clump by the swingsets, some over near where hopscotch was crookedly drawn on the pavement in chalk, still others in the livening grass of early spring. 

In each group, it was the same scene: wide, reckless smiles and nervous giggling. Girls shrugged out of sweaters and boys shed their coats, rolling up sleeves where necessary. There were too many hands--too many kids--for a simple round of handshakes. It was a tangle of arms and fingers, hands reaching everywhere, to every patch of skin they could find. They just wanted to touch and be touched by as many hands as possible at the same time. They just wanted to _know_.

Thin fingers brushed over palms, arms, the occasional cheek or neck. Where hands hadn’t met, forearms did, overlapping as they reached across the small circle of bodies. When nothing happened, the smiles and giggling were replaced with frowns or sighs of disappointment. Then, once the teachers figured out what they were doing, there were shrieks of laughter as they scattered in every direction.

Mrs. Allcott shook her head as she walked back to her post at the edge of the playground.

“They’re so _bold_ ,” she said to elderly Mrs. Marsh as she self-consciously tugged at the pale pink gloves on her own hands. They matched her skirt perfectly. “Was I ever that bold?”

Mrs. Marsh snorted.

“Of course you were,” she replied. “How many times did I take a switch to you, Agatha? Every day, tripping yourself into a new boy’s arms.”

Mrs. Allcott blushed, opening her mouth to no doubt defend herself, but Steve turned away from the conversation. He didn’t want to hear anymore.

He wasn’t allowed to join the other children in their reckless abandon. They laughed and teased and mocked him if he tried. No one wanted to touch him. No one wanted to know if he was their soulmate--not with his short, slight stature and his uneven gait, the perpetual wheeze in his chest.

He wasn’t a desirable soulmate to them. He wasn’t even a desirable friend.

*

Steve squinted into the darkness, as if he could force a shape into being by willpower alone. It was a useless endeavor. The darkness around him was so complete that he couldn’t even see his hand when he experimentally waved it in front of his eyes. There was nothing.

“Who’s there?” He asked and then he immediately wanted to kick himself. What kind of question was that? “Are you okay?”

“I’m the ghost of Christmas past,” the guy said sarcastically, “and I’m doin’ _fantastic_ , pal, thanks for asking.”

After a moment, the guy asked, “Are _you_ okay?”

“Well,” Steve said. “I’m alive.”

His companion snorted. “There’s that, at least.”

Silence fell again.

Tentatively, Steve reached out with his hands and found that he was not entirely blocked in. There was enough space in front of him for him to slide out from under the metal digging into his skin. It hurt like hell, but at least he was no longer pinned. Everyone on his team would say that it was the most idiotic thing he could’ve done. Sam would call him, _a fucking moron, Jesus Christ, Rogers, how did you survive this long?_ Steve didn’t care; he wasn’t going to spend what was possibly his last hours on Earth with a piece of metal sticking into his side. 

Gritting his teeth, he cautiously sat up, testing the height of his nook. It was at least big enough where he could right himself fully and lean back against the pile of rubble at his back. He closed his eyes and took in a deep, slow breath.

“Were you the one that knocked into me?” He asked.

“You mean was I the guy to save Captain America’s ass from being flattened into a pancake?” His companion asked. “Cause that would be an emphatic _yes_. You can throw me a parade any time now.”

Steve huffed out a soft laugh.

“I’ll get right on that.”

*

They must be dead now, his soulmate. Dead or very close to it.

“I don’t think so,” Peggy said, when he mentioned it to her.

It was one of her good days. She was calm and attentive and he hadn’t been able to stop himself from just _talking_. There were so few people he could spill those inner thoughts to and somehow, despite the fact that they hadn’t technically known each other very long, Peggy was one of those people.

“No?” He asked, his lips curling into an indulgent, if somewhat sad, smile.

When they’d first met, Steve had hoped that she was the one--this beautiful, strong woman that saw him for who he was and never found him lacking.

She’d apparently hoped, too. It wasn’t long after Azzano that they’d sat drinking together, just the two of them, in the middle of the night.

“Can I touch you?” She’d asked, hand poised to take off one of her gloves.

Because children were bold, reckless creatures, but they grew up into cautious adults. The older a person got, the more they realized what it was they were inviting into their lives. They became more prudent about who they touched and who they allowed to touch them in return. Some people wore gloves to avoid skin contact, others just declined to allow touch at all.

Peggy had chosen gloves. That night, they were ones that matched her uniform. Steve had never seen her hands bare. It’d seemed scandalous to think he might get the chance.

He remembered the way his breath had caught. “You _want_ to?” He’d asked before he could stop himself, but she hadn’t laughed at him.

The light brush of their fingertips had been, at once, a pleasure and a disappointment. 

Peggy hadn’t been deterred. “If we both survive,” she’d said. “I’d like to choose you, anyways.”

Steve had known then that he loved her. She wasn’t his soulmate, but he would’ve counted himself the luckiest man alive if he had been allowed to spend the rest of his life with her.

Fate had different plans, though, and now here they were. Peggy, aged from a life well-lived, and Steve, unchanged--frozen in time like the ice that had entombed him.

“Exactly,” she said, as if she could see the train of his thoughts. Maybe she could. Maybe, just maybe, love could make a soulmate out of anyone. “It would’ve been cruel, don’t you think? For us to have been soulmates and end up like this.”

“Cruel things happen to soulmates all the time, Peg,” Steve reminded her. 

“Not for you,” she sighed out, pulling her hand from his grasp to caress his cheek. “You deserve happiness. You will find them. Have faith.”

When Steve walked out of her room an hour later, Agent Romanoff was leaning against a wall near the door. She smiled that sly, secretive smile of hers.

“Congratulations,” she said, “we’re partners now.”

Steve raised a single eyebrow. “You mean that you’re my babysitter now,” he replied.

He didn’t bother to ask her why she didn’t wait until he arrived back at headquarters to tell him; he’d already begun to realize just how calculated her movements were. As he began to walk toward the elevators, she fell into step beside him.

“So, is Director Carter your soulmate?” She asked. When he glanced sideways at her, she shrugged in a show of nonchalance. “You did request a transfer here once you realized she was still alive.”

“Peggy was the only woman I ever loved.”

He said nothing of soulmates, because he knew better than to think that Agent Romanoff was above eavesdropping.

*

“So what’s your name, anyways?” Steve asked.

“What,” the guy asked, “don’t want to die with a stranger?”

“We’re not gonna _die_ ,” Steve protested, even though he shouldn’t be promising anything.

The guy huffed. “Name’s Bucky,” he said finally.

“ _Bucky?_ ”

“It’s a nickname, pal,” Bucky said. “Lay off.”

Steve smiled into the dark, shaking his head slightly.

“No judgment here,” he said. “Most everyone calls me ‘Cap’ and I basically stole that rank, so--yeah. No judgment.”

There was a very long pause and then Bucky let out a sharp, breathless laugh.

“You actually did, didn’t you?” He asked. “No one ever talks about that, but you _did_. Damn.”

Steve smiled as he listened to Bucky’s continued laughter. It was a nice laugh. He let himself enjoy its cadence and the companionable silence that followed, before he had to ruin it by reminding Bucky of their predicament.

“So, Bucky,” he said, regretfully, “how much weight do you think is on top of us right now?”

“Hard to tell,” Bucky replied, sober again. “I can’t even see the tip of my nose right now. You?”

“Nothing,” Steve agreed. 

He tentatively lifted his hand up above his head. His gloved knuckles scraped something just an inch or so above his hair. Grunting, he shifted onto his knees. 

“I think I can probably lift this off of us.”

“ _What?_ ” Bucky sounded alarmed. “No way, that’s a terrible idea, pal, you don’t even know--”

The sound of shifting rock and scraping metal drowned his voice out. He felt the rubble against his shoulders shifting, too, but not in a good way. Something fell near his knees.

“Jesus, _stop_.”

“I can do this,” Steve gritted out, ignoring the painful throb in his side. “I can get us out of here.”

If he couldn’t, then what good was he?

“You’re gonna get us _killed_ , is what you’re gonna do,” Bucky snapped.

To his right, Steve heard something shifting closer to him, like it was about to fall on top of him. His side was screaming in pain and he was probably about to squash himself after someone had so thoughtfully saved him from just that fate.

He collapsed back into the spot he’d been occupying, suddenly lightheaded. Even though it didn’t make much of a difference, he closed his eyes to steady himself and took in a deep breath. 

_Yeah,_ he thought. _That was fucking stupid._

*

All of the Avengers, in one form or another, already had their soulmates.

Steve had learned this little by little along the way. Tony and his Ms. Potts, Thor and his Lady Jane, Bruce and a mysterious woman named Betty that Steve had never had the pleasure of meeting.

The one that surprised him most was Natasha and Clint. It made sense, the two of them, but what surprised Steve the most was that Natasha volunteered that information.

“We’re soulmates, Clint and I,” She’d said, just before the battle of Project Insight and the fall of SHIELD. “We’ve known since the first time we met.”

Steve stared at her, frozen in the middle of putting on his uniform.

“Why are you telling me that?” He’d asked.

Natasha played things close; it was the nature of spies. She was impossible to read and impossible to figure out and he respected her despite those things. Maybe even because of them.

She’d turned to look at him then and Steve had the dizzying experience of feeling as if he were staring at a stranger. Her eyes were unguarded--as unguarded as she could muster, which wasn’t much, but it was enough.

“I want you to trust me,” she’d said and he could see it her gaze, how much she truly did want that.

“I trust you,” he’d replied and meant it.

The real surprises came later, though. First it was Clint and his farmhouse, his family. Steve turned to Natasha, mouth agape, after meeting Laura Barton.

“Don’t be old-fashioned,” Natasha said, rolling her eyes. “Soulmates can be platonic, too. It doesn’t _have_ to be romantic.”

Which Steve _knew_ , of course he knew that, he’d just never--he’d never _met_ any platonic soulmates before.

The true bombshell was the morning that Thor’s Lady Jane and her companion Darcy were visiting the compound. Darcy tried to slide past Natasha in the communal kitchen to get some coffee and their bare forearms brushed. Her coffee cup shattered on the floor as they stared one another down, a sly smile slowly spreading across Natasha’s lips.

“Well,” she said, “isn’t that interesting.”

“ _Two?_ ” Tony had cried out later on. “Two soulmates? That’s being greedy, Romanoff!”

Steve’s smile was a brittle, broken thing.

“Congrats,” he’d said and tried not to throw up.

Natasha deserved happiness. Steve just wished that he deserved a little slice of it, too.

*

“Oh,” Steve mumbled, blinking blearily into the pitch black.

The lightheadedness hadn’t gone away. In truth, it’d grown worse and then--then Steve had started to get cold.

“Oh?” Bucky repeated.

“Don’t--don’t hate me,” Steve slurred out lethargically. “I f-forgot.”

He fumbled for the button on one of the pockets of his uniform. It was becoming difficult to keep his coordination. The tips of his fingers were cold and, he thought, a little tingly--he was pretty sure that was a bad sign. He finally got the pocket open and reached for the box inside.

“For--are you alright?”

“Me?” Steve ran his thumb along the edges of the box, trying to remember what Tony had shown him. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t _sound_ fi--”

Bucky’s words fell away as blinding light suddenly filled the space around them. After so long in such total darkness, the sudden brightness hurt. He flinched away from it until he could adjust. When he could finally see, he found that his little nook was actually a pocket of space large enough for him to lay down in. The space was littered with dust and debris, small bits of rock and metal, and in the middle, two large beams cut through the area that was otherwise protected by two large pieces of concrete that had fallen together to create a perfect little triangle above his head. 

On the other side of the beams, Steve saw a man. His clothes were dirty, part of his shirt torn to reveal a tanned chest underneath. There was a strap to a backpack over one shoulder.  His hair was dark, on the longer side, and most of it was pulled back. Strands had gotten loose, though. A few curled delicately against his stubbled chin, others falling right into his eyes--vivid, bright eyes that stared unflinchingly at Steve. They were a color that was impossible to name, but beautiful nonetheless.

This must be Bucky. He was gorgeous and Steve only hated himself a little for letting himself notice it at a time like this.

“Hi,” he said dumbly, and some part of him knew that he could only partially blame the fuzzy quality of his mind for something so inane. He had never been particularly suave around attractive people and despite the fact that he was on a team full of attractive people, that fact hadn’t changed over the years.

“You mean to tell me,” Bucky said, and somehow, even his _voice_ was attractive now, “that you’ve had that this entire time and you only just now-- _shit_ , _are you bleeding?_ ”

Steve looked down at where his hand was pressed over a dark patch in his uniform. The kevlar had soaked up most of the blood but some of it had spilled onto the concrete underneath him and that puddle was slowly growing. This was the first time he’d been able to get a true sense of how deeply that metal beam had cut into his flank and when he took his hand away, he realized that the wound was much worse than he’d originally estimated.

“Um,” Steve said, slowly looking back in Bucky’s direction. His lightheadedness was worse now that he could actually see and--yep, that was his vision going gray at the edges. “Not much.”

“ _Not much_ ,” Bucky repeated incredulously. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ.”

He grabbed the strap of the backpack in his right hand and swung it off his shoulder, throwing it through the beams to land next to Steve. It was only when he used that same hand to swing himself under the lowest beam that Steve realized something was definitely off.

“You’ve got some nerve, pal,” Bucky said, kneeling at Steve’s side and grabbing the backpack. “I saved your ass and now you’re tryin’ to die on me _again?_ ”

“Hey,” Steve slurred, watching Bucky unzip and rummage through the backpack, all with that same hand. “Hey, your--your arm is missing.”

Bucky paused long enough to level Steve with an unimpressed stare.

“You don’t say,” he deadpanned and then pulled out a truly large first aid kit from the backpack. 

“Did that--did that happen because of…?”

Steve waved a limp hand to their surroundings. A bark of surprised laughter bubbled up from deep in Bucky’s chest. Even though Steve knew it was at his expense, he was still immeasurably pleased that he’d elicited another laugh.

“If it had, I’d be dead by now,” Bucky said. He opened the kit and pulled out a medical glove, using his teeth to help pull it onto the one hand he had. “Which you would know if you weren’t bleeding out all of your brain cells right now. Do yourself a favor and stop talking, alright? I don’t need to deal with foot-in-mouth on top of you bleeding out.”

“That’s probably a good idea,” Steve admitted.

*

In his darkest moments, Steve’s mind whispered the worst truth to him:

He’d been born without a soulmate. He hadn’t ever been good enough for that kind of companionship. He’d known it since he was a child, had been certain down to his _bones_ that this one fact was true.

He would never find his soulmate, because there wasn’t anyone to find. He was a fluke.

He was a mistake.

*

“You do good work.”

They were Steve’s first words since he’d been oh-so gently told to shut up. In that time, Bucky had managed to strip his uniform to the waist, clean his wound, and sew it closed. It was impressive all on its own, really, but even more so when it was acknowledged that he’d done it all with one hand. It hadn’t even taken him all that long to accomplish it and he’d needed Steve’s help only twice during the whole process.

Bucky snorted as he very gently applied a gauze bandage to the wound.

“I should hope so,” he said, tossing the medical tape back into his Mary Poppins bag of a first aid kit. “It used to be my job.”

He leaned back to survey his work. After a few critical moments, he nodded in approval and started the process of cleaning up. When Steve tried to sit up and help, he was forcefully pushed back down by a gloved hand covered in his own blood. The red handprint on his chest only made Bucky huff in annoyance.

“Well, shit,” he said. “See what you made me do?”

He ripped the glove off the same way he’d put it on and then grabbed the blood-soaked hand towel laid across Steve’s abdomen to clean up the mess.

“I wanted to help,” Steve protested weakly.

“You can help by not doing anything that will pull those stitches.”

Obediently, Steve laid still and watched Bucky clean instead. It was a little mesmerizing, watching him move. He didn’t know if it was the blood loss that made it that way or it was just Bucky’s natural allure, but Steve couldn’t look away.

“So,” he said, because if he didn’t focus on something, he might fall asleep or blurt out something else incredibly embarrassing. “It used to be your job?”

Bucky hummed his assent. 

“I was a nurse,” he said, carefully closing the first aid kit. “Before--well.”

He gave an exasperated look to the shoulder of his missing arm.

“And now you just carry around a portable urgent care in your backpack?”

Bucky snorted. “I lost my arm, pal,” he replied, “not my desire to help people. You’d be surprised how often this thing gets used. Though I have to admit, it’s never been in a situation like this.”

“I can’t picture you as a nurse.”

“No?” 

Bucky quirked an eyebrow.

“No,” Steve repeated. “You have a terrible bedside manner.”

It earned him another laugh.

“I’ll have you know that I was very popular with the children _and_ the old ladies,” Bucky said.

Steve grinned, but it was a slow, sleepy thing. He was exhausted and cold; a few minutes of sleep didn’t sound like a bad thing at all. His eyes started to close. 

“I bet you were,” he mumbled.

“Hey,” Bucky said. “Hey, no. Don’t do that, I need you to stay awa--”

A warm hand cupped his bicep to shake him and then Bucky’s voice died out.

Steve’s eyes flew open, wide and confused, but it wasn’t because Bucky stopped him from going to sleep. Lethargically, he found the place where their skin touched--the fingers still gripping his arm. Bucky was staring there, too, his eyes wide with shock.

The touch tingled, heat spreading out through his arm from that spot. It prickled his skin like a cold chill but it was _warm_ , so warm. It was a touch Steve had yearned for since he was a child--a touch that he thought he would never know, never be able to describe from firsthand experience.

Slowly, their eyes lifted from the place where they touched and met in the dim lighting of their makeshift cavern. Bucky was the first to speak and his voice was soft, little more than breath.

“Well, fuck.”

*

Steve had a fantasy. 

He’d had it for as long as he could remember--had carried it through years of childhood loneliness and adult isolation, through war and ice and all the time after. Most people might’ve found it to be a childish, silly fantasy, but to him, it was everything.

It began with the soft rustle of sheets. There was an awareness of a body next to his, the warmth of a palm over his hand. He’d be relaxed, lethargic. It would take him a while to open his eyes because of that contentment, but when he did, the first thing he’d see was the golden morning light illuminating the face of his soulmate.

Their face--whoever they were--it would always be the first thing he saw.

They’d blink sleepily and when they saw that he was awake, their perfect lips set in that perfect face would stretch into a soft, loving, perfect smile. Perfect, because no matter their shortcomings or flaws, they would be his and most importantly, he would be theirs.

That was the secret that he never let himself speak out loud. That was the ache that never quite faded from his chest.

All his life, Steve Rogers had only ever wanted to belong--to something, to someone, to both. And all his life, that belonging had been held just outside his reach.

*

Trembling fingers brushed along Bucky’s jaw in reverent wonder. Steve was still seconds away from passing out, he could feel it, but--God, his _soulmate_.

He might die, but at least he was allowed to have this first.

“I can’t believe you’re real,” Steve breathed out.

Bucky reached up to clasp his hand, their fingers sliding together. He held on tightly as he tilted his head, brushing his jaw and cheek along Steve’s knuckles.

Steve understood. He wanted to do the same. When people spoke of the first touch, they made it sound like a one-off. Like there was something special about the first time skin meets skin when the right two souls find each other, but after that, it faded.

It didn’t. At least, it hadn’t in the several stunned minutes that they’d been touching. Every brush was the same tingling warmth. It was the cruelest twist of fate that Steve found this when he was barely conscious enough to enjoy it as much as he’d dreamed.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, after several more minutes of just watching and touching.

Bucky blinked, surprised. “Sorry?” He asked in confusion. He looked as though Steve had just yanked him from a particularly nice daydream.

“I know that I’m not,” Steve paused, swallowing thickly. “That I’m not very impressive. You deserve better than me, but--”

“Deserve better?” Bucky repeated incredulously. “You’re Steve fuckin’ Rogers. You threw yourself on a grenade when you were still in training to try and save people you barely knew. You went into enemy territory with nothin’ but a tin shield to bring back prisoners of war. You were literally _saving the planet_ before we got buried alive. What the fuck do you think is more impressive than that?”

Inexplicably, tears burned at the corners of Steve’s eyes. He couldn’t stop them.

“We’re stuck,” he said, his voice wretched and small. “I can’t--I can’t even get us out of here. _You_ had to take care of _me_. I’m not--”

His words were cut off by a hard kiss. Both of their lips were chapped, catching and dragging awkwardly. Steve was pretty sure there was blood in his mouth. It was easily the best moment of his life, the best _feeling_ of his life.

“You,” Bucky murmured against his mouth, “are a huge fuckin’ idiot, y’know that?”

Steve smiled haplessly. He wanted to open his eyes and see Bucky again, see his--his _soulmate_. But he found that he couldn’t. He no longer had the energy to keep awake.

“Terrible bedside manner,” he murmured lethargically.

“No,” Bucky said, sounding panicked. “Hey, _no_ \--don’t do that, don’t--”

Steve wanted to open his eyes again, to take the panic out of that voice. He struggled to do just that, but the darkness dragged him under, anyways.

*

When Steve stepped into the lab, he knew it was a mistake.

He’d been asked here specifically, but it was a mistake.

Tony and Pepper stood by the workbench, oblivious to their new audience despite the _whoosh_ of the doors behind Steve. Tony smiled at his soulmate warmly. It was a small, private thing, but so utterly besotted that Steve felt as if he was betraying Tony’s confidence just for seeing it. Her answering smile was wider, freer than Tony’s ever would be, and just as in love. 

“Why, Ms. Potts,” Tony was saying, “what a surprise. What brings you by, hm?”

She’d only just arrived, apparently. Her purse sat on the edge of the bench just behind her and she still had a coat on.

Tony’s fingers danced across the workbench, heading straight for hers. When he found her hand, he picked it up and watched as their hands opened to one another, fingers sliding together. Pepper leaned her forehead against Tony’s temple.

“I missed you,” she admitted quietly.

Steve’s stomach clenched painfully.

They fought most days, because of course they did. Tony was the heir to a billionaire fortune and Pepper was the lucky woman tasked with being his company’s CEO. That came with a certain kind of stress, nevermind the history they were drenched in before they ever realized they were soulmates.

“No,” Tony murmured, “I missed _you_.”

He turned into her, as if to kiss her, and Steve blindly whirled on his heel. He couldn’t see anymore. He had to get _out_ of there.

He ran straight into a wall.

“Crap,” he hissed, hand flying to his forehead, and he heard Tony awkwardly clearing his throat and Pepper’s surprised “ _oh!”_ behind him. 

When Steve guiltily turned back to them, she was bright red and looking anywhere but at Steve. There was considerable distance between them now, as if they’d sprung apart like guilty teenagers.

“I’m sorry,” he said desperately, “I didn’t mean to interrupt, I just--I’ll come back, okay? I’m sorry.”

“Nonsense,” Pepper said, and then, so smoothly that Steve would’ve believed her if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes, she added: “You’re not interrupting anything. What can we do for you, Captain?”

“I, uh,” Tony coughed. “I called him down here.”

“Tony!”

Pepper stared at him in disbelief, but he merely shrugged off her admonishment.

“I got distracted,” he said pointedly. Her blush deepened.

“What did you need from me, Tony?” Steve asked, because it looked like they were on the verge of forgetting he was in the room again.

“Right!”

Tony brightened immediately and gestured to the workbench between them, where a small black box laid.

“I present to you,” he said, “Tony Stark’s emergency kit for most occasions.”

Steve raised his eyebrows.

“ _Most_ occasions?”

“I can’t fit tools for every possible scenario into one little pocket-sized box, Cap,” Tony said in exasperation. “I _tried_.”

And the thing was--Steve believed that he actually had tried. It was such a Tony thing to do.

“Anyways, look,” Tony picked up the box and began flicking little knobs on it. “It’s got a flashlight, a swiss army knife, a little laser-heater in case of extreme cold, a fan in case of extreme _hot_ , and the best part--a homing beacon. All you gotta do is touch it and it’ll activate. Y’know. Just in case anyone puts a plane in the Arctic.”

He raised his eyebrows very pointedly in Steve’s direction. This time, it was Steve who blushed. Satisfied, Tony set his little device back down on the workbench and smiled that faux-smarmy smile of his.

“I thought I could mass produce it,” he said, “and by mass-produce, I mean, make one for each member of the team. Sew it into our uniforms or something so that we all have one in case of emergencies. But I wanted to run it by you before I showed the other guys.”

“Run it by _me?_ ”

“Well. Yeah.” Tony’s expression shifted, looking at Steve like there was cause for concern. “You’re the Captain, Captain. You’re the boss. Do you think it’ll be useful in the field? Do you have suggestion for improvement? Do you have something you want me to _add?_ ”

Steve swallowed thickly, trying to keep his expression neutral. Trying not to show how deeply it affected him, Tony wanting his opinion as if they were equals.

“I think it’s a great idea, Tony,” he said quietly.

*

Steve woke slowly.

A heart monitor beeped rhythmically to his right. He hear the shuffle of feet several feet away and a calm voice page over an intercom. Someone was holding his left hand, lips pressed to his knuckle, and warmth radiated from the touches.

He blinked and found himself staring at the ceiling of a hospital room. When he turned his head, he found his soulmate. Bucky had pulled a chair as close as he could get it to the edge of Steve’s bed. He was leaning over the sheets, eyes closed as he gripped Steve’s tightly in his own. He kissed Steve’s knuckle and then kissed it again before his lips moved away. His forehead rested on the place he’d kissed instead.

“Hey,” Steve said hoarsely, fingers twitching.

Bucky’s head shot up, an array of emotions chasing each other across his face. Surprise melted into happiness melted into annoyance. 

Steve started to ask, “How did we--”

And at the same time, Bucky snapped, “You almost _died_ , asshole.”

They stared at one another for a long, silent moment.

“Your friends found us not long after you passed out from blood loss,” Bucky finally answered, “That was a fun moment, by the way, having the Avengers try to take you away from me after I dragged your lifeless fuckin’ body out of the wreckage. I almost got shot by the Widow _and_ the Falcon and I’m pretty fuckin’ sure Iron Man was gearing up for a shot of his own, because I wouldn’t let go of your dumb ass. They say congratulations, by the way. I’m sure once they realize you’re awake, they’ll be in here to give you shit, but y’know what? They can _stand in line_.”

Steve smiled sleepily at him.

“Terrible,” he said and he didn’t have to finish the thought for Bucky to know what he meant.

Honestly: a terrible bedside manner.

“I don’t care,” he replied, though his tone had softened just a little. “I just found you and you’re already tryin’ to die on me. We’re gonna have a talk about that complex of yours, pal, I’m not gonna worry myself to death every time the world’s about to end just because you think you need to be some faultless hero that can’t get hurt. You get to be human, too.”

“Do I?” Steve asked. He’d meant it as a joke, but his voice cracked on the words.

Bucky’s gaze softened considerably. He stood and leaned over to kiss Steve’s forehead and Steve--he wanted to die of embarrassment, the way his eyes immediately watered. Bucky pressed their foreheads together, sighing.

“You get to be human,” he repeated quietly. “We can figure it out together, if you want.”

Steve nodded quickly.

“I’d--I’d like that,” he said, “a lot.”

Bucky smiled.

“Together, then.”

**Author's Note:**

> Find me over at [Tumblr](http://www.greenbergsays.tumblr.com/) where I regularly make a fool of myself. (You can also find my writing blog [here](http://www.greenbergwrites.tumblr.com/).)


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